Double the Trouble
by Baron Zed
Summary: Sequel to The Shared Doom. Naruto returns to Konoha with Ranma along for the ride. Will Konoha be able to survive a Naruto insecure about his Jusenkyo curse and an overprotective Ranma?
1. Chapter 1: Return to Konoha

Ranma and his friends were created by Rumiko Takahashi. Naruto and his friends were created by Masashi Kishimoto. This is fan fiction created for fun.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** This story is a sequel to The Shared Doom. While it is not strictly speaking necessary to read The Shared Doom first because the first chapter is expositiony, it is recommended. This story picks up at the end of Naruto's training journey, half of which Ranma was present for. While The Shared Doom's setting was primarily based on Ranma 1/2, Double the Trouble will deal primarily in the Naruto setting. Ranma characters _may_ pop in. Ranma and Naruto both have the same (but different than Canon Ranma's) curse. Jiraiya also has a Jusenkyo curse.

This chapter came out long for me. Expect most chapters to be my normal length.

* * *

"Ero-sennin," Naruto complained, "Can't we wait three more weeks?"

They were about 15 minutes from Konoha's front gates.

"No, Brat," Jiraiya snapped. "Stop bothering me about this. I have important things to do and I can't have you brats interfering."

"What?" Ranma asked with a sneer. "More 'research?'"

"Yes, more research," the Toad Sage said. "The future of the Elemental Nations' literature depends on my research."

"Spare me your boasts, Ero-sennin," Naruto snapped. "Do you know how much trouble showing up now is going to cause me?"

"Yes, yes I do," Jiraiya said with a smile. "Maybe next time you'll think before you interfere with my research. Besides, Tsunade-hime would kill me if I left you with the Panda to oversee your training."

Naruto grimaced. That excuse was plausible. Ranma's father's training ideas were the type of things that would make the Crazy Snake Lady from the Second Stage of the Chuunin Exams smile.

"That might hold water if you weren't as crazy as Pop," Ranma said dryly. "Or if you hadn't already left us with him for months at a time."

Jiriaya stopped and stared at the redhead. "You think I'm as reckless as your father?" He looked genuinely surprised.

"Have you forgotten about tossing Imouto off of a cliff so that she would be desperate enough to call on the Kyuubi's power?"

Jiraiya had the decency to look embarrassed. "Look, I had safeguards set up in case it didn't work and it was a last resort."

Ranma looked speculatively at him. "You know, I think that's one of the reasons why Kushina-obachan is looking for a way to manifest outside our seal-scape."

The Toad Sage paled. Naruto did not blame him. No one wanted to feel the wrath of her mother.

He shook his head and then said, "Look, I know these next few weeks are an inconvenient time for both of you, but I really do have things I need to see to that would be better without you two along."

To say that the next few weeks would be inconvenient for Naruto and Ranma was an understatement. Their cursed forms were ovulating and their personal magic was interfering with their Jusenkyo curses and their shapeshifting. Not only were they locked in their cursed forms, but they could not use their shapeshifting to enter any male form. And while their minds were not interested in boys at all, for most of the next week their bodies would be. It was not anything they could not control, but it was embarrassing—even to Naruto, who was generally considered to have no shame. She certainly did not want to run into Kiba while she was "in heat." If last year was any indication, they would remain locked until their period was over. Their period began a week after ovulating ended and lasted for a week. The only good thing was that they only had to go through it once a year. She was anxious to see Tsunade, Sakura, and the rest of her friends, but not being able to assume her real form and meet them as "himself" was the worst of it.

"You're lucky your cursed form has already reached menopause," Ranma grumbled.

Jiraiya just laughed.

They walked in silence until they reached Konoha's main gates. They signed in as Uzumaki Narumi and Uzumaki Ranmi, guests of Jiraiya. They had decided to adopt the naming scheme for female Saotome fox youkai for their girl names when the people in question did not know who they really were. They had also decided that "Ranmi" and "Narumi" would be Uzumaki in the Elemental Nations and Saotome in the outside world. They would use their real names when in male form.  
Jiraiya guided them to the Hokage Tower. Naruto had mixed feelings. She wanted to see Tsunade again, but was a little nervous about exposing her condition to her. Then she smiled. When it doubt, blame it on Jiraiya. It was even mostly true.

* * *

Ranma was feeling a little bit nervous—although for different reasons than Naruto was. After talking about it with Naruto, she had decided to join Konoha's ninja forces, providing the terms were reasonable. Being a ninja stood against everything that her father had taught her, although the older Saotome was fairly ninja-like himself. However, she was not willing to give up the close relationship she had with her "twin" and the other cursed boy/girl was in a tough spot. She needed to be nearby.

As they approached the entrance to the Tower, Naruto asked, "Not using the window, Ero-sennin?"

Jiraiya laughed and said, "Not when I'm bringing others along with me—especially since you don't look like yourself."

The guards eyed them, especially Naruto and herself, but let them through.

"Hime," Jiraiya exclaimed as they entered the Hokage's office.

"So you're finally back, Pervert," a blonde woman with a prominent bust said. She appeared to be younger than 30, but according to Naruto she was the Old Pervert's age.

She frowned at the two girls. "Is this the infamous Oiroke no Justsu?" she asked. "I would think you'd know better than to use such a perverted technique near me."

She cracked her knuckles. "You better not have picked up any of the Pervert's habits."

Naruto threw herself at the older woman. "Baachan, it was awful," she sobbed into Tsunade's shoulder. "He made me stay like this the whole three years. He even made me keep a redheaded Shadow Clone around so that it would be like being with twins."

The older blonde's face twisted into a snarl and she slugged the Toad Sage in the gut. Jiraiya slammed into the wall. Her advance on the downed pervert was halted by Naruto's giggles. She whipped around and frowned at the younger blonde.

"That's what you get for bringing me back at this time of year, Ero-Sennin," she said, still giggling.

Ranma rolled her eyes and bowed. "I'm Saotome Ranma, sorry about this."

"What in the world is going on?" Tsunade said with a growl. "And what do you have to be sorry for?"

Ranma smirked. "My sister and her idiot guardian."

"I don't know what they told you," the Hokage said, "but Naruto isn't really a girl and he doesn't have a sister."

"Oh, I know she's normally a boy and we weren't born sisters," Ranma said, still smirking, "but we have the same condition."

"Condition?" the Hokage asked. She put a hand on Ranma's chest and a green glow surrounded it.

"You aren't human," Tsunade said. "I don't know what you are, but you're not human."

"I'm not human right now," Ranma corrected.

"I'll repeat myself," Tsunade said, losing patience. "What's going on? The only reason I haven't put you in a world of hurt is that you came in with the Pervert and that stupid stunt that just happened is something that Naruto would think was funny."

Jiraiya groaned. "Please make the office secure, Hime, and I'll explain."

Tsunade made a gesture with her hand and then after a delay of ten seconds activated a seal on her desk.

The Toad Sage stood up. "I wish you could have delayed your revenge until we could make sure that no one was listening, Brat."

"Okay, Pervert," the Hokage said. "Spill."

"I decided to broaden the Brat's horizons and took him outside the Elemental Nations," Jiraiya said.

"We were being chased by some very angry and very persistent women," Naruto added.

Jiraiya scowled, but continued, "We were at a place called Jusenkyo which is in the hinterlands of a nation called China, where we saw Ranma and his father sparring on some bamboo poles above a pool of water."

"His?" Tsunade asked.

"I'm normally a boy too," Ranma explained.

"Ranma's father was knocked into one of the pools. In his place a large panda popped up. A guide told us that the pools cursed Ranma's father to change into the panda. The panda knocked Ranma off of his pole. Naruto caught him in order to prevent him from getting a curse. The two of them landed on a wooden platform, but the platform broke, immersing them in a different pool."

"The pools work by cursing you with the form of whatever first drowned in it," Ranma explained. "Pop fell in the Spring of Drowned Panda."

"What pool did you fall in?" Tsunade asked.

Naruto and Ranma exchanged a glance. "We fell in the Spring of Drowned Foxgirl," Naruto said with a sigh.

"What," Tsunade said flatly.

Naruto and Ranma both relaxed into their foxgirl form. It was their default form while cursed, although they had several others that they could change into without difficulty, including the human-looking one they had been using. The only real difference was that they now had fox ears and three tails the color of their hair sprouting from the ends of their spines. Their other two forms where a giant, tiger-sized fox with three tails and a normal-sized fox with one tail. They could also assume any other shape for a total of three hours a day normally, including their original birth forms—except for the few weeks a year when their cycle was active.

"Please tell me that this isn't permanent," Tsunade said, palming her forehead.

"It is and it isn't," Jiraiya said. "The curses can normally be deactivated temporarily, but there's no way we know of to get rid of them permanently."

At this point, Ranma did not think she would get rid of the curse if she could. At first she had hated it, but then she had found out that the curse actually restored to her her heritage. She had been born a human boy, but her mother was a fox youkai, just like her cursed form. Naruto was also descended from a fox youkai, but much more distantly. She was not willing to give up being a boy, but the curse had actually brought her much closer to her mother and given her a sibling and best friend in the form of her distant cousin Naruto. Over a year of being tutored by her mother in how to be a female fox youkai had made her accept her curse and being a girl part time—mostly. Equally, learning that the founder of the Uzumaki clan had been a male fox youkai had made Naruto less wary of turning into a fox—although it still made her nervous considering how unwelcome foxes were in Konoha.

"You're sure that this isn't due to the Kyuubi?" Tsunade asked.

"At first, we thought it might be due to the Kyuubi indirectly," Jiraiya said.

"How so?"

"The pools of Jusenkyo tend to be ironic," he explained. "The magic there pulls you toward curses that emphasize or highlight a character flaw. Ranma had issues with being compared to a girl by his father and Naruto was afraid of being seen as a fox because of the Kyuubi. Later we found that although Ranma was originally human, his mother is a fox youkai. Also Naruto's distant ancestor, the founder of the Uzumaki clan, was also one."

"Yours too, Baachan," Naruto said. "Why didn't you tell me we were related?"

Tsunade sighed. "Sensei's notes recommended that you not be told until you were older or at least more mature. You aren't exactly subtle, Naruto. If you had been told your heritage before you're training trip, can you honestly say you wouldn't have shouted it from the rooftops?"

Naruto folded her arms and pouted. "I can too be discreet."

"I admit you're much better at that now, Brat," Jiraiya said, "but before?" He shook his head.

"If you can deactivate your curses," Tsunade asked, "why didn't you before our meeting?"

Ranma shrank into herself and Naruto wrinkled her nose is distaste.

Jiraiya chuckled. "They're in heat."

"What!?" Tsunade exclaimed.

"They're ovulating," he explained. "There's something in their personal magic that interacts with Jusenkyo's magic that stops them from resuming their male forms until after their period is over. It lasts for about three weeks total."

"But one cycle follows another," Tsunade protested. "Does this mean they're almost always female?"

"No," Naruto said smugly. "Fox youkai normally only ovulate once a year."

Tsunade looked irritated at that news, but did not say anything. "Where are you at in the cycle?"

"Only about two days in," Ranma said irritatedly.

"Anything else I should know?" Tsunade asked.

"A few things," Naruto said. "First, Ero-sennin has a curse too."

"Oh," the Hokage asked. "What does he turn into?"

"He fell into the Spring of Drowned Amazon Elder," Naruto said, smirking.

"Amazon Elder?" Tsunade asked.

"He turns into a shrunken, wrinkled crone," Ranma said, also smirking.

The Hokage burst into laughter. "You mean he turns into a woman, but he can't even fondle himself because he's old and decrepit?"

Naruto laughed. "Not really decrepit, but very, very old."

"This I have to see," she said. "How does it activate?"

"Cold water activates, hot water deactivates," Ranma said. "Ero-sennin designed two seals to help us control it. The first is a seal that locks us in our cursed form. Unfortunately the 'hooks' in the magic that allow that are not there when the curse is deactivated, so we can't be locked in our birth forms as far as we know. The second is a seal that repels water. It has a few disadvantages."

At this point, Naruto nailed Jiraiya with a water balloon, activating his transformation into an old crone. The seals on her clothes swapped them out for clothes that fit her current form much better. Giggling Naruto said, "It only stops 'free water.' Water in something like a balloon or sack isn't stopped and if it bursts, it triggers the curse."

"It also can't stop anything but weak Water Release Techniques and won't stop large natural effects like rain or falling in a creek," Jiraiya said in her scratchy voice. She turned to Naruto. "Haven't you had enough revenge yet?"

"You brought me home right at the beginning of my locked cycle despite my repeated requests to wait so that I could be able to turn back to normal—just so you could perv without interference. What kind of godfather are you?" Naruto glared at Jiraiya, who glared back.

"Speaking of Amazons," Ranma said. "There's a chance that Ero-sennin's Amazon wife will show up."

"The Old Pervert got married?" Tsunade said incredulously.

"I did not," Jiriaya spluttered. She pulled a kettle out of a storage seal and turned back to normal. "I saved a woman and her daughter from being killed or worse. According to their customs, that made me her husband. They also consider Naruto and Ranma their daughters and sisters since they were female at the time."

Tsunade doubled over laughing.

"They're nice people, if somewhat odd," Naruto added. "The woman's name is Jeru and her daughter is Shanpuu. If they show up, they'll likely be accompanied by Jeru's grandmother Koron, who looks like Ero-sennin's cursed form, and possibly by Muusu, Shanpuu's unrequited suitor."

"You really think they'll show up here?" Tsunade asked doubtfully.

"They've caught up to us a few times on the training trip," Naruto said. "They have to have some way of tracking us, but we don't know what it is. Ranma's parents might also show up. We had them settle down in Tanzaku-gai before coming here."

"Why didn't they come to Konoha with you?" Tsunade asked.

"Several reasons," said Jiraiya. "Ranma's father, to put it lightly, is a scoundrel."

Naruto added, "We were also afraid that people might try to kill him when they found out what he did to Neechan in the name of training and for some reason, she's still fond of the idiot."

"He's my Pop," Ranma said as if that explained things. "He's not that bad—just lazy and stupid."

"We were also afraid of what Ranma's mother might do to the villagers if she saw them mistreating Naruto," Jiraiya said. "She considers Naruto a close niece/nephew or even an adopted son/daughter."

"Mom's not that bad," Ranma protested. "It's likely she would give them a stern talking to and make them feel a few centimeters tall."

"Or she could freak them out so badly they would have heart failure," Jiraiya muttered.

"Maybe we should invite her to come for a visit," Tsunade said snidely.

Ranma was glad to see that her sister's surrogate grandmother was protective of her. "We wanted to get settled first," she said. "It really is better that Pop stay away for now and she's the only one that can control him."

The conversation lulled until Tsunade asked, "How did you come to be traveling with the Brat and the Pervert, Ranma?"

"Jusenkyo is death magic," Ranma said. "It interacted with the Shiki Fuujin [Dead Demon Consuming Seal] on Naruto, destroying it. . ."

"It destroyed the Shiki Fuujin?" Tsunade interrupted, pale as a ghost.

"Yes, but it's not that bad, Baachan," Naruto said. "The Eight Trigrams Seal is still there, plus it released my dad!"

"What? Minato is alive now?" Tsunade said, thunderstruck.

"Not exactly," Jiraiya said. "From what the Brats have said, when the Shiki Fuujin collapsed, Minato was pulled from the Shinigami's stomach into the seal where it merged with a Shadow Clone that Minato had built into the seal."

"Dad was also able to make a seal that uses mine and Ranma's chakra to sustain the Shadow Clone of Mom that got put into the seal too," Naruto exclaimed. "Now we can talk to Mom and Dad whenever we want!"

"Wait!? Ranma too?" Tsunade exclaimed.

"Yeah," Ranma said. "Jusenkyo spread the Eight Trigrams Seal to me while we were in the pool. Now I'm the co-jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi. We share the same 'seal-scape.'"

The Hokage put her palms on her forehead. "I so did not want to hear that."

"It caused some problems for a while in that Ranma's boy form could not handle the Kyuubi's chakra, so we had to lock her in her foxgirl form," Jiraiya said. "Ranma could already manifest her chakra in a raw form that the Japanese call ki, so it only took several months for her to learn how to properly use chakra. Due to her supernatural heritage, even as a human, he had lots of potential."

"Pronouns are going to be a pain with you three, aren't they?" Tsunade said with a groan.

Ranma smirked. "The Kyuubi claims that it doesn't want to escape and the four of us that've talked to it agree that its behavior seems to bear that out."  
"Four of you?"

"Me, Naruto, Minato-jichan, and Kushina-bachan," Ranma responded.

"Of course you would call the Yondaime Hokage jichan," Tsunade muttered. "No one this close to Naruto would actually be respectful."

"We offered a trade," Jiraiya said. "Ranma, who's quite talented in taijutsu, would train Naruto in it and, in return, we would teach Ranma to use chakra so that her curse could be unlocked. At the time, Ranma was very against being a girl. By the time that Ranma's curse was unlockable, they had bonded to the point that they consider each other very close siblings. We also traveled with Ranma's parents for over a year so that her mother could teach the two of them fox youkai skills."

"What kind of skills?" Tsunade asked curiously.

"Shapeshifting, illusions, and foxfire," Ranma said. "We need to gain a couple more tails before we can start branching out into other magics."

"Illusions? Like genjutsu?" Tsunade asked.

"In some ways," answered Naruto. "Our illusions cover the areas they affect. They don't attack a person or their chakra system directly."

"How would you rate their skills, Jiriaya?" the Hokage asked.

"Overall, their combat skills are at fresh jounin," the Toad Sage answered. "Ranma is quite good at taijutsu. She has some decent long-ranged ninjutsu and similar skills, but she tends to disregard them in favor of beating on someone with her fists. Her biggest fault is that she tends to toy with her opponents and draw out fights.

"Naruto has improved substantially, largely due to Ranma's influence. She's now decent in taijutsu and has picked up some decent long-range ninjutsu. Her biggest fault is that she tends to attack head on. She has some excellent improvisation skills for if and when that fails, but she would be better served by thinking ahead.

"Both of them are excellent learners if it is something that interests them, but have a hard time if they find themselves bored. They both are excellent at stealth, but for some reason dislike using it in a fight. Naruto's pranking skills could translate well to trapping, especially with some of the fuuinjutsu they've picked up. They are both Inuzuka-level trackers in their cursed forms, and are even not to bad in their natural forms once they figured out Shadow Clone's usage there. Their leadership skills are unknown and their grasp of long-term strategy is iffy, but they're both excellent tacticians. With a little more seasoning and experience they could be superior shinobi."

Tsunade looked thoughtful. "Would you like to join Konoha's shinobi forces, Ranma?"

"What are the terms?" she asked. "If I decide to quit in a few years, can I without any hassle?"

"Genin must serve for five years after joining," the Hokage said. "After that they can retire at any time."

"Is it different for other ranks?" Naruto asked.

"Chuunin and jounin must serve for five years after promotion and when they retire, they are automatically put into the Reserves unless it's a medical retirement," Tsunade answered.

"You mean they can be called up involuntarily?" Ranma asked.

"For retired chuunin, they can only be called up during an invasion or war," she replied. "Retired jounin can be called up at the Hokage's discretion."

"I'll join as a genin," Ranma said, "provided I can be on Naruto's team. If I'm not on my imouto's team, I don't have a reason to join."

"Really?" she asked. "Based on Jiraiya's endorsement and some minimal testing, I could justify enrolling you as a chuunin."

"Nah," Ranma said. "I'm not sure I'm cut out to be a shinobi, but I can handle five years."

"And you, Naruto?" she asked. "I could promote you as well."

Naruto looked thoughtful. "Before the training trip, I would have said, 'yes,' no question. Now? I think I'll hold off on it, Baachan, and see how my condition is received."

The Hokage was shocked. "But your dream of being Hokage!"

Naruto laughed. "I've found family outside of Konoha, Baachan. I still love Konoha and want the best for it, but now I have more than just that dream." She grinned foxily. "Besides, I swore to Scarface during the Chuunin Exam that I could become Hokage as a genin and I still say that I can do it!"

A faint grin touched Tsunade's lips. "Very well," she said as she opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a Leaf Badge attached to a blue headband. She tossed it to the redhead. "You understand that by accepting the Leaf Badge, you are joining the military of Konohagakure no Sato and Hi no Kuni and swearing to protect them and to obey the lawful orders of the Hokage and your appointed leaders?"

"I do," Ranma answered as she tied it around her waist. Naruto had changed her Shinobi Badge to her waist not long after being cursed because the headband interfered with her ears in her foxgirl form.

"Change back to human," Tsunade commanded, "and I'll call for your team leader and teammate. I'd like your team leader to evaluate your skills."

"Who is it?" asked Naruto, bouncing on her toes.

"You'll just have to wait and see," the older blonde said. She deactivated the seal and scrawled a quick note. She made a gesture and an ANBU appeared in front of her in a swirl of leaves.

"Execute these orders," she told the ANBU. She smirked at Naruto, who pouted.

"You could have told him the orders verbally," the younger blonde accused.

"I know."

* * *

The wait worried at Naruto like a dog at a bone. It was all that she could do to not pace—all the while Tsunade and Jiraiya grinned at her. Even Ranma looked amused.

"I could be eating Ramen Ichiraku," Naruto complained under her breath.

Finally a familiar figure entered the office.

"You wanted to see me, Shishou?" [ _master_ ] Haruno Sakura asked. She looked older, but much the same as when she had seen her last.

"Sakura!" Naruto exclaimed, excited to see her old teammate.

"Naruto!?" the pink-haired girl exclaimed in return. Then her features hardened. "What are you doing using that perverted technique?" She moved to punch Naruto in the head.

Her wrist was caught by Ranma. "I won't let you hit my sister for no reason."

"Why does this Shadow Clone have red hair?" Sakura asked.

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Why does everyone think I'm a Shadow Clone?"

"It is Naruto's favorite technique," Jiraiya commented.

"Are the Shadow Clone and Oiroke the only techniques you used before, Imouto?" Ranma asked.

Naruto chuckled nervously. "Maybe. . ."

Sakura, whose wrist was still being held by Ranma, said, "I don't know who you are or what the Idiot told you to get you to play along with his prank, but will you please let me go?"

"Are you going to hit my sister?" Ranma asked her.

"Fine," Sakura snarled. "I'll let him try to explain himself, but you should know that Naruto is a boy and pretending to be his sister is futile because are no records of who his parents are."

Ranma rolled her eyes. "Naruto is my sister because we share the same condition. By birth, we're distant cousins."

Jiraiya scowled and activated another security seal on Tsunade's desk, to her bemusement.

"Condition?" Sakura prompted, curious. Her hand glowed green. Ranma, knowing what she was doing, because the Hokage had already done it to her, dodged out of reach.

"Haven't you people heard about medical ethics?" she complained.

"Medical ethics?" Sakura said.

"You know," Ranma said, "like 'Do no harm.'"

"We're shinobi," Sakura said, confused.

"How about privacy rights?" Ranma asked.

"Shinobi," Sakura repeated blankly.

"I still don't like you butting into my affairs without permission," Ranma stated.

"Ah, don't be so standoffish, Neechan," Naruto said with a smile. "Sakura will find out soon enough, assuming she's on our team. She is on our team, isn't she, Baachan?"

"Yes, Naruto," the Hokage said. "She's on your team with Ranma."

Naruto whooped excitedly.

"You're replacing Sasuke?" Sakura said, dismayed.

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "The Uchiha brat has been missing in action for about three years. It's only as a favor to you and Naruto that I don't label the punk a missing nin."

"Don't worry, Sakura," Naruto said. "Neechan's awesome!"

"What's this condition you have?" Sakura asked.

Naruto explained to her about Jusenkyo and their curse and how they met—leaving out the fox parts, including the Kyuubi.

"Can you demonstrate this 'curse' to me?" Sakura asked.

"Not for a few weeks," Naruto said. "Our curses are locked."

"Really?" she said doubtfully. "Why?"

"Estrus," Naruto mumbled.

"What?" Sakura said.

"Estrus," Naruto said, louder. "We're ovulating."

"I know what estrus is, Idiot," Sakura said. "I just don't know what it has to do with this. The human female reproductive cycle is nearly continuous. If it interfered, then you would hardly ever be male again until you were old."

Naruto sighed and explained about what their real curse was and how their yearly cycle interfered with the curse. This culminated in Naruto showing Sakura her tails.

"Cute!" Sakura exclaimed as she pounced on her.

Ranma snickered, grateful that she was spared the usual response to a girl discovering their tails.

"You don't mind?" Naruto asked.

"Well, the whole thing is really weird," Sakura admitted, "but it's not like you're the Kyuubi. Plus, I think this is justice for developing your perverted Oroike no Jutsu."

Naruto looked down at the floor and sighed. She looked at the Hokage who nodded.

"Some people think I am," she admitted sadly. "The Kyuubi, I mean—even without this latest development."

"Why would they think that?" Sakura demanded. "You've always been annoying, but you're hardly demonic."

Naruto explained about how the Kyuubi could not really be killed and how the Yondaime had sealed the Kyuubi inside her when she was a baby.

"Don't they know anything about sealing?" Sakura asked.

"Some people really do believe Naruto is the Kyuubi," Tsuande explained, "but I think they're a minority. There are others that believe that the Kyuubi took Naruto over when he was a baby. Others think that Naruto is dangerous because the Kyuubi might escape and others mistreat him simply because of peer pressure."

Sakura looked embarrassed at the last explanation.

Disliking the heavy mood, Naruto tossed another water balloon at Jiraiya, who was looking away in shame at the way people treated her. "Ero-sennin is too old to have to worry about estrus and menstruation. She can demonstrate her curse."

"Brat!" the transformed Toad Sage whined. "Will you stop that?"

Naruto folded her arms and sniffed. "Sakura wanted a demonstration of Jusenkyo in action."

Jiraiya summoned another kettle from a storage seal and changed back.

"Where does all the mass go?" Sakura demanded. "He must have dropped at least 70 kilograms and then got it all back!"

"Don't know, kid," Jiraiya said. "Don't really care at this point." He looked at Tsunade. "I assume that the team leader will be Kakashi?"

When she nodded, he snorted. "There's no way I'm waiting around for Kakashi to finally show up." He bowed to the Hokage. "I'll see you around, Hime, Brats."

He disappeared in a swirl of leaves, disrupting the privacy seal.

"I don't want to wait for Kakashi-sensei either!" Naruto exclaimed. "Let's go get ramen! Kakashi can come find us."

"So this ramen is supposed to be even better than Koron's?" Ranma asked doubtfully.

"Ramen Ichiraku is the best!" Naruto said enthusiastically.

"Before you run off, Brat," Tsunade said. "Are you going to go by Naruto as a girl?"

"We told the gate guards that our names were Uzumaki Narumi and Uzumaki Ranmi," Naruto said.

"At least those names will be easy to remember," Tsunade muttered as Naruto led Ranma and Sakura out the door.


	2. Chapter 2: The New Team Kakashi

Ranma almost ran into Naruto as she slowed to a crawl.

"What's wrong, Imouto?" she asked. "I thought you loved this Ramen Ichiraku."

"I do!" Naruto protested. "That's the problem! Old Man Ichiraku and Ayame were the only people who were nice to me when I was a kid, other than Old Man Hokage. I just don't know if I should tell them who I am. We agreed to keep knowledge of Jusenkyo to a minimum for now, but I hate doing anything that seems like lying to them."

Ranma shrugged. "This is your home town—I'll follow your lead."

"Some help you are, Neechan," she complained. "I really don't know what to do."

Sakura cleared her throat. "Would you listen to a suggestion from me?"

"Sure, Sakura," Naruto said with a big smile.

"You don't really have any proof that you're Naruto without bringing Jiraiya, down here do you?" she asked.

Ranma and Naruto exchanged glances. "Sort of, but not something I'd want to use on the Ichirakus," Naruto said.

" _That_ doesn't sound ominous at all," Sakura said sarcastically.

Ranma nodded, giving permission for Naruto to explain.

"We have some temporary curse powder mixed up," Naruto said. "It wears off after one use, but it won't work on Ranma or me right now, so we'd have to do it on you or the Ichirakus."

"Which curses?" Sakura asked with trepidation.

"We have temporary girl and boy water," Ranma said. "The girl water wouldn't work on you, so if you wanted to try it, you'd have to use the boy water."

"Pass!" Sakura said with a shudder.

"I don't think the Ichirakus would like it either," Naruto said.

"How about you wait to tell them until you have proof?" Sakura asked.

"I don't want to lie to them," Naruto whined.

"Have Ranma do it then," Sakura offered.

"I don't want to lie to Imouto's friends either," Ranma said.

"You don't have to lie to them," Sakura said. "A little misdirection is all. You can do that, right?"

Ranma thought for a moment and then said, "Yeah. I think I can manage it."

The three started walking again until they came to an open storefront with a bar and stools in front of it.

Naruto rang the bell that was on the counter.

 _This is the first time I've rung the bell since I was a kid_ , she said mentally to Ranma. _I usually just call out._

A young woman came to the counter. "Naruto?" she exclaimed.

"My name is Uzumaki Narumi," Naruto said.

"And I'm her sister, Ranmi," Ranma said. "Cousin Naruto recommended this place. He said it has the best ramen in all the Elemental Nations and beyond."

The woman smiled broadly. "I'm Ayame. Naruto has always been our best customer. Do you know when he's coming back?"

"Should be in about three weeks," Ranma said.

"I admit that you look like him," Ayame said, "but he's never said anything about you."

"We didn't know we were related either," Ranma said, "until our great-grandmother said so."

Ayame giggled. "You should watch out. Naruto used to be quite the prankster. In fact one of his favorites was to turn into a girl. A lot of people might mistake you for him—especially you, Narumi."

Naruto chuckled ruefully. "This isn't the first time I've been mistaken for him." She was probably thinking of Itachi and Kisame.

Ayame took their order and disappeared into the back. After about three minutes, she returned with an older man. "Ayame tells me that you're Naruto's cousins?" he said.

"That's right," Ranma responded. "Uzumaki Ranmi and Narumi."

"When should we expect the little rascal?" he asked.

"In about three weeks," Ranma responded.

"That's great," he said. "We've missed our best customer. It's nice to meet his family."

The three of them ate their ramen. Ranma thought it was excellent, but wasn't sure if it was really better than what the Amazons made.

She looked up from her meal to see Sakura staring at Naruto in shock.

"What's wrong?" she asked the pink-haired girl.

"He. . . she's eating ramen like a normal person," Sakura said in shock.

Naruto giggled. "If you think I was bad, you should have seen how Ranmi used to eat."

Ranma rolled her eyes. They both still ate fast, it was polite. They had incentive to eat at a more reasonable speed.

"What could make you eat your ramen normally?" she asked incredulously. "I would have thought that was impossible."

"Err," Naruto said. "Someone we think well of convinced us to be polite."

"Who!?" Sakura demanded. "I need to thank them!"

"Can't say," Naruto said. "Promised."

The person in question was Naruto's mother, Kushina, but they weren't going to tell anyone that she still lived, after a fashion in their seal-scape, other than Jiraiya and Tsunade. More than just thinking well of her, which they both did, there was also the fact that she would harass them both if they did not listen to her.

After they had eaten, they cheerfully said goodbye to Ayame and Teuchi.

* * *

"Where can we find Sensei?" Naruto asked Sakura.

"He spends all of his spare time and much of the time he should be doing something else at the Memorial Stone," Sakura responded.

"Really?" Naruto said.

The pink-haired girl nodded in response.

 _Oh, Kakashi_ , Naruto's father said sadly.

"Let's go find him," Naruto exclaimed.

"You going to tell him who you are?" Ranma asked.

"Nah," Naruto responded.

"You're not going to tell Sensei?" Sakura exclaimed, scandalized.

Naruto cocked an eyebrow. "Are you saying that Sensei _doesn't_ deserve to be pranked like this? Mr. I'm-only-going-to-teach-you-tree-climbing?"

"He wasn't that bad!" Sakura exclaimed.

Naruto raised an eyebrow again.

Sakura wrinkled her nose. "Okay. He was." She paused. "Hey, he also taught Sasuke the Thousand Birds Technique!"

Naruto rolled her eyes. "Because teaching the most unstable genin in the history of Konoha an A-rank assassination technique is the mark of a good teacher."

Sakura attempted to swat her, but Naruto danced out of reach. "Don't talk about Sasuke that way, Naruto!"

"Look, he was my friend too," Naruto said, "but you can't say that he was emotionally stable."

"It wasn't his fault!" Sakura protested. "It was the curse mark!"

Naruto nodded. "That was a large part of it. Itachi's mind whammy was most of the rest of it. That doesn't change the fact that he was unstable."

"When did you get to be so wise, huh?" Sakura grumbled.

"I saw the world, got some teachers that were willing to actually teach me, found a few true friends—I wouldn't say that I'm that wise, but I've grown up a bunch in the last three years."

"Spending a lot of the time in a body not going through puberty helps too," Ranma added with a smirk.

"What?" Sakura exclaimed. "You look like teenagers to me."

Ranma shifted her apparent age to that of an adult woman. Her breasts and hips expanded and her face took on a more mature look. "You were saying?"

"What?" Sakura exclaimed again. "How'd you do that?"

"Do you know how you can tell a fox youkai's age?" Ranma asked as she switched back to her teen look.

Sakura shook her head.

"The number of tails—one for every hundred years," she replied. "Since Narumi and I have three, that means our bodies are over two hundred years old."

"So that means that the Kyuubi. . ."

"No," Naruto interrupted. "For the Bijuu tails represent power, not age. As far as we know, all the Bijuu are the same age. For youkai, more power comes with age, but it's a side effect of having more tails rather than the cause."

By this time, they were nearly at the Memorial Stone. Naruto quietly said to Sakura, "Introduce us."

"Sensei!" Sakura called.

Kakashi continued to stare at the Memorial for a moment before turning and greeting them with an "eye smile." "Sakura!" he said. "Nice to see you. Who are your. . ." He trailed off and then exclaimed, "Naruto?!"

"Hi, Sensei," Ranma said. "I'm Ranmi and this is my sister Narumi. The Hokage said she was reactivating your team with Narumi and me filling in for your missing students."

Kakashi just stared at them for a moment and then slid up his headband, exposing his Sharingan. "Huh, I guess you aren't Naruto after all." He paused thoughtfully and then added, "I should have known. . . You're wearing too many clothes to be Naruto."

"What!?" Naruto shouted.

Kakashi eye smiled again. "Whenever Naruto pretends to be a girl, he always appears naked. He's quite the little pervert. I'm so proud!"

 _It's an_ _anti-pervert_ _technique_ , Naruto raged mentally. She barely kept herself from yelling it outloud.

"Our cousin claims it's an anti-pervert technique," Ranma said.

"Oh?" Kakashi said. "You're Naruto's cousins? Which side of the family?"

"Surely you noted the resemblance," Ranma said. "We're Uzumaki—from his mother's side."

"Yes, we weren't pleased that you were keeping his heritage from him, Hatake," Naruto growled.

"What makes you think I knew?" Kakashi asked.

"You were his father's student," Naruto snapped.

Sakura gasped as Kakashi sighed. "Yes, I knew. The Sandaime thought it best to hide his heritage from him for his safety. I didn't agree completely, but there was logic there, so I followed orders."

Naruto was about to snap at him again when Ranma said, _Calm down, Imouto. There's nothing you can do about it now and you'll give away too much if you keep at it. We can always prank him later._

She decided to follow Ranma's advice and let it go.

Kakashi eye smiled at them again. "I wasn't aware that any Uzumaki had survived. How did you meet up with Naruto and do you know when he'll be back?"

"Naruto had plans to be in Konoha in three weeks," Ranma said. "We met about a year and a half ago, by lucky happenstance. We didn't realize we were related until our great-grandmother told us the story of Uzu no Shima. [ _Whirlpool Island_ ] Jiriaya confirmed that Naruto was a true Uzumaki."

Jiraiya's confirmation was actually when he found out that they hosted Naruto's father, but Kakashi did not need to know that yet.

"What made you decide to come to Konoha?" Kakashi asked.

"We heard that we had another cousin here and wanted to meet her," Ranma said.

"Who's that?" Sakura asked.

"Baachan!" Naruto said happily. "Her grandmother was an Uzumaki."

"I see you've picked up some of Naruto's bad habits," Kakashi commented.

Naruto stuck out her tongue at him.

"Better his than yours," Sakura muttered.

This only made Kakashi eye smile again.

"What rank did the Hokage assign you?" Kakashi asked.

"We're genin," Naruto answered.

"Well," drawled Kakashi. "Assuming Hokage-sama confirms your story, plan to meet me at Training Ground Seven at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning and so that I can see what your capabilities are. You too, Sakura. It's been a while since we've worked together."

Kakashi disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"We need to plan what we're going to do tomorrow," Naruto said.

"Can't we do it tomorrow morning during the hours we're waiting for him to show up?" asked Sakura.

Naruto shook her head. "I wouldn't put it past him to be there on time and spy on us while making us wait."

Sakura scowled. "That is exactly the type of jerk move Sensei would do."

Naruto nodded and said, "We don't have to nail down everything, but this is what I think our general plan should be. . ."

* * *

Ranma sighed for about the twentieth time. She hated wasting time like this. She would rather be sparring or doing some other type of training, but she and Naruto had agreed that it would be best to not give Kakashi any clues to their abilities before the evaluation. Naruto said she would not put it past him to make them do poorly in the evaluation so that he could have an excuse to be lazy and get out of teaching them much.

From Naruto's descriptions of her old sensei, she definitely had mixed feelings about him. Naruto liked him, but at the same time she resented him for how poor of a teacher he had been. Now that she had her parents really teaching her, the shine of her time with Kakashi had definitely dimmed.

Even after the evaluation they planned on hiding some of their skills. It was not that they did not trust Kakashi or the other Konoha shinobi, but they definitely did not trust Konoha's security. The odds of Orochimaru or even Akatsuki finding out their abilities and designing counters was too high. Plus, they would miss out on some good prank opportunities.

Finally, Kakashi showed up two and a half hours late. Somewhat predictably he slammed an alarm clock down on top of a post and then jangled two bells. "In order to pass this evaluation, you'll need to get a bell. Anyone who doesn't get a bell will need to find a new sensei."

Naruto rolled her eyes. "Maybe we should opt out now. I bet we could get a better sensei elsewhere."

Kakashi eye smiled. "I'll have you know that you won't find a better jounin sensei in Konoha."

Ranma arched an eyebrow. "Really? I mean, we already know how to tree climb. Isn't that all you think genin need to know?"

"My old team was a special case," Kakashi said seriously. "They needed teamwork before learning anything more advanced."

"And how did that work out for you?" Naruto said sarcastically.

Ranma saw their prospective sensei flinch almost imperceptibly.

"The least you could have done is make sure our cousin was up to genin standards," Ranma added. "You know the Academy instructors didn't actually teach him anything."

"I was planning on it once giving him some individual help wouldn't make the team fall apart," Kakashi explained.

"But then the team fell apart anyway," Naruto concluded.

Kakashi fake coughed into his hand. "Anyway. Bells."

Ranma waved a hand. "We already know the point of the test is teamwork."

Kakashi fake pouted.

Naruto snorted. "You really think Sakura wouldn't have filled us in, even if we hadn't already heard Naruto's stories?"

Kakashi eye smiled. "That just means you have to actually get a bell to win. You three ready?"

All three girls answered in the affirmative.

"Start!" Kakashi exclaimed.

Naruto and Sakura disappeared, while Ranma just stayed in place and glared at Kakashi with her arms folded.

* * *

 _Remember_ , Naruto sent to Ranma, _you need to make it tough enough to keep him interested, but not tough enough that he puts it away._

 _I remember_ , Ranma replied. _Trust me. I know how to do this. Showing people just enough skill to think they can win is one of the hallmarks of Anything Goes._

"You know, your cousin did that too," Kakashi told Ranma.

"Unlike Naruto," Ranma said, "I was actually taught how to fight."

She launched a flying kick at the jounin who blocked it while taking out his orange book. They traded blows while Kakashi pretended to not pay attention to her.

"Sure, you're better than Naruto was," Kakashi said in a playful voice. "In fact, you're pretty good—for a genin."

To Naruto's eye, it actually looked as if Ranma were fighting at chuunin level. After the insult, Ranma intensified her strikes slightly, but not enough to make Kakashi put away the book.

Naruto got into position and made one Shadow Clone that moved to stand next to Sakura. They had already decided that spamming clones would only make Kakashi suspicious, but using one at a time would be okay. She prepared for her part in the plan. _Ready_ , she sent.

Ranma suddenly struck at the wrist of the hand holding the book. It was just enough to make Kakashi bobble it. In that moment, Naruto's clone struck with a Replacement and her clone appeared in place of the book. The clone attempted to strike at him, but he was able to disperse it.

Sakura grabbed the book and slapped an Incendiary Tag on it that Naruto had provided her. Naruto moved to support Ranma in cutting off Kakashi. He attempted to dart past the redhead, but Ranma increased her skill just enough to cut him off.

"Alright, Sensei," Sakura said. "You're passing us or the book gets it."

"Getting my book was not the goal of the mission, Sakura," Kakashi chided.

"So it's fine if I torch it?" she asked sweetly.

"I didn't say that," he protested.

"Fine, then give us the bells and we'll give you the book back," Ranma said.

"You were supposed to get them from me," Kakashi stated.

"Naruto said you always told him to 'look underneath the underneath,'" Naruto said. "This is our creative solution to your exam."

"Fine," he said and tossed Naruto and Ranma each a bell. "Let me have my book back now."

Sakura set in on the ground and walked over to where Ranma and Naruto stood. Kakashi used the Body Flicker Technique to appear next to his book and snatched it up, saying, "My precious!"

All three girls rolled their eyes and huffed.

"How can they expect a man to enjoy the finer things in life with three teenage kunoichi on his team?" he muttered.

"What was that, Sensei?" Sakura growled.

"Meet here tomorrow at 8 o'clock for D-ranks," Kakashi said quickly and then dissappeared.

"What!?" yelled Sakura in a rage. "I'm not doing D-ranks again!"


	3. Chapter 3: Cats and Dogs

"Look," Naruto told Kakashi for the third time, "this is a horribly bad idea."

Ranma had plopped down on the floor of the mission office and refused to budge until their so-called sensei chose a different mission. Sakura had disappeared at some point and Kakashi continued to read his porn with amused detachment. The mission office staff were alternating between amusement and disgust at the show they were putting on; most of them anyway, one of them was grumbling about "uppity genin" refusing to undergo their rite of passage.

"We can sit here all day," Kakashi drawled, "but I'm not choosing a new mission. I can read my book anywhere."

Naruto sighed again. "Putting Ranmi in close proximity to any cat is a horrible idea. Sending her after Tora is one of the worst ideas you've ever had."

"I don't know," Kakashi drawled while not looking at them. "I've had some pretty bad ideas. I fail to see how choosing a D-rank mission could compare."

"Our cousin told us about his first C-rank with you," Naruto said. "This decision is worse than any decision you made on that mission."

"Worse than going against an A-rank assassin and his apprentice of unknown skill level with only three green genin?" Kakashi said, finally looking up from his book. "How could that compare?"

"We're in the middle of Konoha," Naruto said dryly.

"While Tora is the devil herself," Kakashi began.

"Amen!" intoned the five desk chuunin in unison.

"I fail to see how she compares to an A-rank missing nin," he finished.

Naruto glanced at Ranma who nodded, giving her permission to tell about the Cat Fist. She hated when people talked about it, but there was no escaping it here.

"Ranmi's first martial arts trainer," the blonde began, there was no way she was claiming Genma as her father and they were known as sisters, "decided it was a good idea to train Ranmi in the Cat Fist." She sighed.

"Cat Fist?" Kakashi prompted.

"It's a supposedly invincible taijutsu technique that involves wrapping a young child in fish products and throwing them in a pit filled with starving cats. Her trainer did this repeatedly until she 'learned' it."

"How is that taijutsu training!?" exclaimed one of the desk chuunin.

"It induces a sort of berserker state," Naruto said. "Ranmi loses conscious control of herself and starts acting like a cat. Some of the time she's playful, but with an aggressive cat like Tora nearby?" She shuddered. "You hear about Sakana no Sato?"

"Fishing village that was destroyed about six months ago," one of the chuunin said.

"Ero-sennin didn't believe us about the Cat Fist and cornered her with a dozen cats to 'see what would happen,'" Naruto snarled.

"She did all that by herself?" the chuunin exclaimed.

Naruto blushed and then laughed ruefully. "Err, while I never went through the training myself, because of our close connection, if she goes under, I follow her. I've never fallen into it by myself, but we've never wanted to experiment to see if there were circumstances that I would."

"It's a wonder no one died," the chuunin said.

"I don't attack people who aren't threatening me while I'm in the Cat Fist," Ranma spoke for the first time since they had first gotten the mission.

Naruto giggled. "They did tell us we chased Ero-sennin for quite a while before letting him go when we got bored."

Kakashi finally put down his book. "Does the Hokage know about this?"

Naruto and Ranma exchanged looks. "It never came up," Naruto said.

"You never thought to tell your commanding officer of a huge psychological weakness?" Kakashi said, arching his visible eyebrow.

"I don't like to even think about it," Ranma muttered.

"Send someone for the Hokage," the jounin commanded the head chuunin.

Said chuunin nodded to one of the others who left.

They were still waiting for Tsunade to come half an hour later when Sakura walked in and angrily threw Tora at Ranma. "Stop being such a baby!" she shouted. "It's just a cat!"

Naruto tried to rescue her sister, but that only made her fall under the Cat Fist herself all the quicker.

* * *

Ranma awoke slowly. She was snuggled up against someone comfortably with her arms wrappe around them. Her heart beat quickly until she recognized her sister's scent and blonde hair. She gently shook her sister. "Wake up, Imouto."

"Huh?" Naruto said groggily.

"Your idiot teammate made us go into the Cat Fist," the redhead said.

"She's your idiot teammate now too," the blonde responded.

Ranma looked around. They were fairly high up in a large tree in a dense forest. The forest seemed unnaturally silent. The only sounds she could hear came from far away. "You know where we are?"

Naruto looked around too. "I think this is the Forest of Death."

Ranma arched an eyebrow. "Forest of Death?"

Naruto nodded. "It's a training ground, but I think it's mostly used for the Chuunin Exams. It's full of deadly plants and animals. I'm kind of surprised we weren't attacked while we were asleep."

The redhead chuckled. "Maybe they know who the real predators are."

The blonde joined her in laughing. "Maybe."

"You ready to head back and check out the damage?" Ranma asked.

"Might as well," Naruto said with a sigh. "I was really hoping to make a good impression on everyone without the Kyuubi hanging over me."

"Were you really going to play the good little genin?" Ranma asked.

Naruto laughed. "Not really. That would be too boring."

"I thought so," Ranma said. "I admit that opening with the Cat Fist is not what I wanted, but at least it won't be boring."

They followed their own scent out of the forest. While it had taken some practice to be able to track well in their human forms, according to Naruto they were probably as good as an Inuzuka in them. In their foxgirl forms they were as good as an Inuzuka ninken [ _ninja dog_ ] and they were even better in either of their fox forms.

Before they had gone more than a few hundred meters they were confronted by ninja with stylized animal masks—ANBU, Naruto had called them.

"Genin Uzumaki," a boar-masked ANBU said, "are you both in control of yourselves now?"

"We are," Ranma answered.

"Come," he commanded. "The Hokage wants to speak with you."

All too quickly they found themselves in front of Tsunade. "What do you two have to say for yourselves?"

"Uh, sorry, Baachan," Naruto mumbled.

"The Mission Office is completely destroyed. We had to evacuate the Hokage Tower and the Academy and all you can say is sorry?"

Naruto looked down at the ground, embarrassed. Ranma could feel her own face heat up.

Tsunade sighed. "Did it not occur to either of you that this Cat Fist is something I needed to know about?"

The two young women exchanged looks, before Naruto once again spoke. "Honestly, no it didn't, Baachan. Neechan hates even thinking about it and she can usually control it pretty well by just avoiding cats. I thought we would be fine if we just avoided the Tora mission. I obviously didn't take Kakashi's pettiness or Sakura's temper into account."

Tsunade sighed again. "Really, Naruto? You've known them for how long?" She rubbed her forehead. "That doesn't consider that the Uchiha are allied with a group of ninja cats or that the Nibi takes the form of a giant cat. What is Konoha to do if we have a battle against Kumo and our jinchuuriki can't face Kumo's and we didn't even know about it?"

"Sasuke has ninja cats!?" Naruto exclaimed.

Tsunade shrugged. "We don't know if he has made contact or not. Only the Uchiha knew where they lived. Now, explain to me about this Cat Fist."

Ranma let Naruto tell the story. She really hated talking about it. She also hated people knowing about her weakness, but hiding it from the Hokage was not possible at this point. Plus, Tsunade was right, they should have told her as their military commander.

After Naruto was done, Tsunade looked at Ranma with pity. She hated that look; it was part of the reasons she hated telling the story. "Your father really did that to you?"

Ranma sighed. "Pop is really dedicated to making me the best martial artist of my generation. The problem is that he is lazy and short-sighted. It led to him taking all sorts of short cuts in my training. Many of them worked, but all of them were what you would call crazy. He wasn't being intentionally cruel."

"In other words, he's an idiot," Tsunade said.

Ranma shrugged. It was not untrue. Despite everything, she cared for the man, but she was not going to defend him from statements like that.

"Is there anything else about you two that I should know?" Tsunade asked pointedly.

Ranma snorted. "Cat Fist, shapeshifting curse, being part-time fox youkai, Kyuubi, Naruto's dead parents living in our psyche, my idiot Pop. . . We told you about the Amazons and that most of the Saotomes are fox youkai, right?" She looked at Naruto. "Anything else?"

"The Lost Puppy," Naruto said.

Ranma palmed her forehead. "Ah yes, Hibiki Ryouga. He thinks he's my rival. His sense of direction is horrible, so he's always getting lost, but he does tend to turn up periodically."

"He's got a shapeshifting curse too," Naruto added. "It turns him into this adorable little bulldog. He blames Ranma for that."

"Is he going to be a problem?" Tsunade asked.

Ranma shrugged. "He's obsessive and oblivious. . ." She shrugged again. "It's hard to say for sure, but he's mostly harmless."

Tsunade sighed. "Right. I'm mandating that the two of you see a Yamanaka psychologist in order to treat the Cat Fist."

Ranma felt not a little trepidation about seeing a psychologist, but if they could cure her of the Cat Fist, she would do it.

"You have one with enough clearance?" Naruto asked. "Even if they don't meet the Kyuubi, they'll certainly meet my parents."

Tsunade sighed. "I'll have Inoichi himself do it."

* * *

Naruto knew they should go find Sakura and Kakashi, but she did not feel like explaining the Cat Fist to them and she was a little bit irritated with both of them. Her stomach grumbled and she realized it was late afternoon and they had not eaten since breakfast.

"Let's go get some food," she said.

"Food sounds good to me," Ranma said.

"Ichiraku?" Naruto offered.

"We went there yesterday," Ranma said.

Naruto pouted. "It's my favorite and I hadn't had it for almost three years."

Ranma gave her a put-upon look. "Fine."

Naruto slugged her in the shoulder. "Don't give me that look, Neechan. You like ramen almost as much as I do."

Ranma smirked.

They had almost made it to Ramen Ichiraku when they heard a voice call out, "Hey, Naruto! I didn't realize you were back!"

Naruto groaned. It was Kiba. And she was still ovulating. Joy. She and Ranma both turned around. Kiba was accompanied by Akamaru, who was much bigger than the last time she had seen him, Hinata, and Shino.

"Dude!" Kiba said as he got closer. "Why are you using that technique!? Sakura will kill you if she sees you like that!"

"I'm afraid you've got me mistaken for my cousin," Naruto said.

"What!?" Kiba exclaimed. "No way." He touched his nose. "The nose doesn't lie. You smell like Naruto."

 _Smells like Loud Boy mixed with female fox_ , said Akamaru in the canine language. _Smells ready to mate._ His tail wagged vigorously and his tongue hung out of his mouth. He was laughing at her.

Naruto face flushed with heat, feeling truly embarrassed for the first time in years.

Kiba laughed at her too. "Akamaru agrees. You been working on your perverted technique? You even smell like a girl now, except you made a mistake. You smell like a girl fox in heat, not a human girl."

Naruto hated being embarrassed. After all those years of being laughed at and mocked, she had become a clown, figuring that if she could laugh at herself, they would be laughing with her and not at her. With her hormones surging and the uncertainty of being back in Konoha with her curse, her shame grew and then changed into anger.

"You think this is funny, Kiba?" she asked, seething. "Do you?"

"Way to remove all doubt that it's you, Imouto," Ranma muttered.

"Yeah, I do!" Kiba retorted.

Naruto summoned one of their _special_ water balloons from a storage seal on her wrist. The seal was drawn using invisible ink so that it only showed up when it was activated. "Let's see how _you_ like it then!" She threw the water balloon at Kiba, dowsing her and Akamaru. They had been too busy laughing to dodge. Both of them turned into girls—human girls. Kiba was still wearing _her_ clothes, but Akamaru was quite naked.

"Huh," Naruto said. "I hadn't expected it to do that to Akamaru."

Ranma shook her head and pulled a spare shirt and pants from a storage seal.

"What did you do to me!?" Kiba yelled.

Akamaru whined piteously. Hinata gasped and held a hand up to her mouth. She looked especially distraught for some reason. Shino simply adjusted his glasses. Other bystanders fled, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire of Naruto's prank.

"Come on, Akamaru," Ranma said. "Let's get some clothes on you. You don't want to be molested by a pervert."

"What did you do to me!?" Kiba repeated, now desperate.

"Relax, Kiba," Naruto said. "What I did to you and Akamaru is temporary—unlike what happened to Ranma and me."

"Your condition is permanent?" Hinata squeaked.

Naruto looked at her and said, "It is, but not in the way your thinking." She gestured to Ranma. "This is my cousin Ranma, but when she's a girl you can call her Ranmi. I go by Narumi when I'm a girl. We both happened upon a place called Jusenkyo. If you fall into a spring there, you pick up a shapeshifting curse. Now we switch back and forth between this form and our normal forms based on a trigger. I'm not going to tell you what the trigger is, since I want Kiba to have the fun of figuring it out. The version I splashed Kiba with will wear off so he won't keep switching back and forth like we do."

Hinata relaxed.

"Tell me how to fix this, you jerk!" Kiba yelled.

"No way!" Naruto said. "You were being a jerk first!"

Kiba threw a punch at her, but her new body threw her off so much that Naruto did not even have to work to avoid it. Kiba started to chase her around the others.

Hinata bowed to Ranma. "It's nice to meet you, Ranma. My name is Hyuuga Hinata. We weren't aware that Naruto knew his family."

Ranma bowed back. "It's nice to meet you, Hinata. Family communication was complicated by the destruction of Uzushiogakure."

 _Nice evasion, Neechan_ , Naruto sent mentally as she made faces at Kiba, who was still chasing her.

Shino bowed as well. "My name is Aburame Shino. It's nice to meet you Ranma. Naruto is a true Uzumaki then? Rumor had it that he was given the name to honor the First Hokage's wife."

Ranma bowed to Shino. "It's nice to meet you, Shino. Yes, Naruto is a true Uzumaki, despite not looking the part." She fingered her red hair.

"Does your curse trigger often?" Hinata asked politely.

"The curse is fairly easy to manage, unless we try to stay in our normal forms too much," Ranma said. "If we do, the curse conspires to get itself activated—often at the worst possible moment."

"Is that why you're a girl right now?" Hinata asked.

Ranma shifted uncomfortably. "We're pretty much stuck for the next two weeks. Something interferes with the curse's magic once a year."

"Does it have to do with the elevated pheromone levels my kikaichuu [ _parasitic destruction insects_ ] detect?" Shino asked.

"Yes, Shino, it does," Ranma said, blushing. "But it's embarrassing, so can we please drop it?"

Kiba stopped chasing Naruto and started laughing loudly. "You're in heat, aren't you? That's why you can't change back! That's worse punishment than anything I could do to you! Come on Akamaru, let's go try to figure out how to change back."

Kiba helped Akamaru stand up and they walked off with Kiba helping her. The transformed dog was having a hard time walking on two legs.

Rather than try and explain things to Hinata and Shino, Naruto and Ranma made their excuses and took off toward Naruto's apartment, deciding to forgo eating at Ramen Ichiraku.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** I feel that this being the internet, it needs to be said, Ranma and Naruto falling asleep cuddling in the Cat Fist was a sisterly, platonic thing only. They are not getting paired up in this in any way.


	4. Chapter 4: Confrontations

When they got to Naruto's apartment, they headed up to the roof. Ranma always liked to do katas to calm down and think things through. Naruto had picked up the practice from her. Naruto lost herself in running through her favorites.

"When did you want to talk to Sakura and Kakashi?" Ranma asked her.

"Tomorrow," Naruto said. "If they come look for us to apologize, fine. If not, they can wait."

"What's got you upset, Imouto?" Ranma asked.

Naruto sighed. "Same as always. I like Sakura, but she thinks I'm stupid. She never listens to me or takes what I say seriously. Same with Kakashi—I always get the feeling he's just humoring me."

"You knew they were going to be like this," Ranma said, chiding her gently.

"I guess," Naruto said with a sigh.

"How long before today's performance spreads the fact that Narumi is Naruto?" Ranma asked.

Naruto shrugged. "I bet my friends and their senseis all now by now. The other important ninja in the village too. For the random civilian?" She frowned. "A few days at most. Rumors always spread about me quickly."

Ranma slapped her on the shoulder. "Cheer up, Imouto. We can always use 'boy time' to avoid attention. We don't have anything else to use it on until our yearly is done other than fading into the background if you want to avoid the stares."

"I know," she replied. "I just hate hiding, Neechan. They should accept me for me."

Ranma smiled wryly. "I know, Imouto." She grinned. "My offer to pound anyone who looks at you funny is still on the table."

Naruto giggled. "You've been talking to Mom again haven't you?"

Ranma smirked. "I've been wanting to try that hair trick on someone who would recognize it. It worked great on Ero-sennin, but on someone who isn't sure who I am?"

Naruto laughed. "I can see how Mom would appreciate you putting the 'Fear of the Habanero' into Konoha."

 _You got that right_ , commented said woman emphatically.

* * *

After dinner as the two of them were discussing sealing, a knock was heard at the door. Ranma activated a seal which let them see who was at the door. The seal produced an image that was tied to a seal placed outside their door, resulting in something with the same function as a security camera from the outside world.

"Looks like Kiba's mom," Naruto said.

"Think she's here to cause problems?" Ranma asked.

Naruto shrugged. "I only know of her from Kiba's stories and she seems the type to enjoy a good joke. As long as we assure her that we haven't done anything permanent to Kiba or Akamaru she _should_ be fine."

Naruto opened the door. "Mrs. Inuzuka?"

"Hello, pup," she responded. "May I come in?"

Naruto shrugged and gestured her inside.

Since Naruto's apartment lacked a lot of furniture, they each sat down on the floor mats.

"I'll get straight to the point, pups," Kiba's mom said. "I came to discuss what happened to Kiba and Akamaru this afternoon."

"I assume Kiba hasn't figured out how to remove the curse yet?" Naruto asked.

She shook her head. "It _is_ removable then?"

"Yes," Naruto said. "Unlike the kind that Ranma and I got, his is completely removable."

"So you're permanently a girl now?" the Inuzuka woman asked.

"No," Naruto answered. "The normal version of the curse of Jusenkyo is activated and deactivated by cold and hot water, respectively."

They both felt there was no point to hiding the trigger since Kiba would figure it out eventually.

"So Kiba and Akamaru just need hot water and they'll turn back to normal?" said boy's mother asked.

"That's right," Ranma said. "We hope you won't drop any hints to your son unless he doesn't figure out for a few days. He was quite vocal in blabbing to everyone within earshot about the most embarrassing aspects of our condition."

"You're Naruto's cousin?" Mrs. Inuzuka asked.

"Yep," Ranma responded. "Saotome Ranma, but I also answer to Uzumaki Ranmi when I'm a girl."

"How come you two haven't used hot water to turn back into boys?" Mrs. Inuzuka asked.

"Because we're stuck in our feminine cycle right now as I'm sure you can tell," snapped Naruto.

"I can smell that you're in heat," Mrs. Inuzuka said, "but you smell like foxes in heat rather than humans."

Naruto sighed and explained about the different pools at Jusenkyo. Both foxgirls shifted so that their ears and tails were showing.

"This doesn't have anything to do with what happened the day you were born, Naruto, does it?" the older ninja asked cagily. She was obviously trying to ask about the Kyuubi without breaking the Sandaime's law.

Naruto sighed and glanced over at her sister. Ranma was scowling at the Inuzuka fiercely. Her stance had loosened into what Naruto recognized as her ready stance.

Mrs. Inuzuka raised her hands and said, "Whoa, pup. I'm not making accusations or anything. I'm just trying to understand."

Naruto put a hand on her shoulder and said mentally, _Peace, Neechan. The Inuzuka favor loyalty above all else and she knows that the Hokage holds me in close regard._

Ranma relaxed out of her ready stance—not that it mattered a whole lot—Ranma could attack or defend at a moment's notice regardless of her stance.

"If you're referring to the Kyuubi?" Naruto paused long enough for the older woman to nod. "Then not directly. We've been told that the pools of Jusenkyo while not being actually aware, have a component that preys on one's fears and weakness. My biggest fear since I graduated from the Academy has been people confusing me for the Fox." She gestured to head and tails.

"And the girl part?" Mrs. Inuzuka asked.

Ranma scowled and Naruto giggled.

Naruto said, "Ranma's father believes in motivation by insults and his most common insult was to accuse him of being a 'weak girl.' I tried to stop Ranma from falling into a pool after seeing his father cursed to turn into a panda. That meant that we ended up falling into the same one."

Mrs. Inuzuka snorted and looked at Ranma. "If you need any help showing your father what a woman can do, let me know."

Ranma chuckled wickedly. "Pop has since learned the error of his ways, although he tends to backslide on occasion. Mom was planning on keeping him away from Konoha, but if you do run into him, I only ask that you don't do anything permanent to him."

Mrs. Inuzuka laughed and said, "I like you, pups. You can call me Tsume when not in public." She grinned wickedly. "Even if you do have the forms of inferior canines."

Naruto grinned back, just as wickedly. "Becoming part fox has only increased my mischievousness. Are you sure you want to start something?"

Tsume blanched.

Ranma chuckled. "That doesn't even consider that she's now heard stories about what her mother did as a young woman."

Tsume's eyes widened farther.

"You knew who my mother was!" Naruto accused.

Tsume sighed. "Yes, I did. You share enough of her scent that Inuzuka familiar with her knew that you were her son." She held up a hand to forestall a protest. "Before you ask why we never said anything, you must know that the Sandaime commanded us not to say anything or to act on it in order to protect you from your parents' enemies. A few of us kept an eye on you when we could, but that was the most we were allowed to do."

"That old man did more damage to you out of good intentions, Imouto," Ranma grumbled.

Seeing Tsume's frown, Naruto waved off Ranma's complaint. "What's done is done, Neechan." They had long determined that they were going to disagree on their views of the Sandaime. Ranma resented how isolated and unhappy Naruto's childhood had been because of him while Naruto could not help but have fond memories of her grandfather figure. In some ways it was similar, but in reverse, to their feelings for Ranma's father.

"So how are you two finding the distaff side?" Tsume asked.

Naruto smiled and allowed Tsume to move away from the topic of the Sandaime's decisions regarding Naruto. "It's not too bad, other than having our feminine cycle once a year and having to deal with idiots who won't take 'no' for an answer."

"You only have your cycle once a year?" Tsume growled.

Naruto and Ranma both smirked at her.

Tsume rolled her eyes and then slapped Naruto on the back, which caused her to stagger a little. "It was nice to meet you, pups. I need to go make sure Kiba and Akamaru haven't gotten into too much trouble."

"Thanks, Tsume," Naruto said. "Come and see us any time. We'd love to hear any embarrassing stories you'd like to tell about your son."

Tsume laughed heartily as she left.

* * *

The next morning, Ranma was relieved to discover that her and Naruto's estrus was over. Just two more weeks until they would be back to what passed for normal for them. The middle week of their yearly cycle was a breeze; the only issue was that they could not transform into any male forms via the curse or their natural shapeshifting while their bodies discovered that they were not pregnant and then prepared to clean out their wombs.

The two of them ate breakfast and then did some light exercise as a warmup. Technically they were supposed to be meeting their team, but since Naruto said that Kakashi would be at least two and a half hours late, they practiced on their building's roof instead.

When they showed up two hours after their nominal meeting time, Sakura yelled, "You're late!"

As they had expected Kakashi was nowhere to be seen. Ranma glared at her and said, "Not hardly. By my watch we're at least half an hour early."

"Kakashi-sensei said to meet at seven!" Sakura exclaimed.

"If Sensei says to meet at seven, he really means nine or ten, Sakura," Naruto chided.

"Look underneath the underneath, Sakura," Ranma added with a malicious smirk.

Sakura opened her mouth to say something, but closed it instead. She looked at the ground in embarrassment. When she looked up she said, "I wanted to say sorry about the other day, Ranmi."

Ranma folded her arms and glared at her. "Why didn't you believe us when we said I had bad interactions with cats?"

Sakura hunched over and said, "I thought it was one of Naruto's pranks in order to get out of a mission no one liked. I just wanted to get it over with."

"You think my imouto would lie to get out of a mission?" Ranma said piercingly.

Sakura gaped at her before saying, "Not when you put it like that, but Naruto's a goof. He always exaggerates things and messes around."

 _You don't need to lay into her so harshly, Neechan,_ Naruto sent telepathically.

 _I'll let up in a minute, Imouto,_ Ranma sent back. _She just needs to get over her prejudices._

"It's been three years since you've seen Naruto, Sakura," Ranma said pointedly. "You don't think she's matured in that time?"

"I haven't matured _that_ much," Naruto whined.

Ranma rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying we won't goof around, Sakura. Naruto _is_ Naruto. I will promise you that we won't intentionally mess up missions—even the stupid ones."

"Alright," Sakura said. "I get it. Forgive me?"

"Of course!" Naruto exclaimed, hopping up and down a little.

Ranma nodded sharply, letting the pink-haired girl know she was going to watch to make sure she treated her imouto right.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Kakashi appeared in a swirl of leaves.

"Hello, my cute little genin!" he exclaimed.

Naruto smirked as Ranma scowled at their team leader. Her sister had accepted the fact that she was female a lot of the time, but still hated to be called "cute" unless she was doing it intentionally in order to scam or prank someone.

"Now it has come to my attention that some members of our team have not been completely honest with the rest of us," Kakashi chided. "Isn't that right, Narumi? Or should I say, Naruto?"

Ranma had browbeat her into taking a hard line with Kakashi. It was in Naruto's nature to let the past be the past and to let old grievances go, but Ranma had convinced her that Kakashi would not change unless they forced him to. Naruto thought that Ranma was pretty hypocritical in insisting on this, since she tended to be the same, but had discovered that her surrogate sister had a pretty fierce protective streak where she and Konoha were concerned. The fact that someone cared that much for her meant that Naruto tended to give into her on these matters. The fact that Naruto's mother agreed with Ranma only meant that she gave in all the quicker.

After some discussion in their seal-scape between her, her parents, and Ranma, they had decided to act as if they thought Kakashi did not care what happened to Naruto. Her father had insisted that he did and that he just had a hard time showing it and that he had never related well to genin—even when he was that age. Her mother had acknowledged that that was true but insisted that Kakashi still had to pay for his neglect.

Naruto shrugged her shoulders. "Don't pretend that you care, _Sensei_. You only took our team because the Sandaime threatened you."

Sakura gaped at her while Ranma smirked. Kakashi crinkled his eyes in the way he always did to show he was smiling.

"Now, now, Naruto," he said. "It's true that the Sandaime encouraged me to accept your team, but never think I didn't want any of you."

"If that were true," Naruto drawled, "how come you never taught us anything?" She tapped her temple to show that she was thinking. "Oh, that's right. You did teach us tree walking and team building and. . ." She tapped her temple some more. "Nope that's it. In eight months, that was all you taught Sakura and me."

"Let's not forget your poor judgement in teaching an A-rank assassination technique to an obviously unstable pre-teen," Ranma added snidely.

Kakashi sighed. "I can see why you would resent me for that, Naruto, but there are things that were going on that you don't understand."

"Why don't you enlighten us then, _Sensei_?" Sakura demanded. Now that Naruto's issues were out in the open, she must realize that he had ignored her just as much.

"Unfortunately," Kakashi said, "I don't think the answers are going to satisfy you. The Hokage and I both had our reasons for wanting your team to succeed, but you were barely a team. While I passed you on a technicality, it did show that you could work as a team. However, your growth as a team was very sporadic. This is why I emphasized team building so much. I didn't teach you many other practical skills because Sasuke was too unstable. I needed him to depend on you. Because of his instability, I couldn't teach either of you anything without him getting jealous."

"Sasuke wasn't unstable!" Sakura shouted.

Naruto and the other two teammates just stared at her incredulously.

Sakura huffed and said, "Well, maybe he was a little unstable, but he had a reason!"

"No one says he didn't have a reason, Sakura," Kakashi said, "but the fact remains that there was a tight balancing act I had to walk as your sensei."

"Why did you end up teaching him that assassination technique he later used on Naruto?" Ranma demanded.

Kakashi sighed. "I regret that, but I felt at the time that I didn't have a choice. The odds of him surviving the fight with Gaara were low even with the Thousand Birds Technique. Since it was a Lightning Release Technique, I thought it was the best way to give him a chance against Gaara's sand shield. If I had insisted that he forfeit, the odds were too high that he would resent me and flee Konoha."

"Which he did anyway," Ranma snapped.

Kakashi shrugged. "Things are more obvious in hindsight. The Sandaime and I thought he would handle the cursed seal better than he did since it rarely effects Anko."

"Crazy Snake Lady has the cursed seal too?" Naruto exclaimed.

"She does," Kakashi confirmed, "but keep that on the down low. She hates being reminded of what Orochimaru did to her."

"Why did you nominate them for the Chuunin Exams when they obviously weren't ready?" Ranma asked.

Kakashi said, "They made a lot of progress as a team in Nami no Kuni. I was hoping some mild danger would bring them closer together."

"Mild danger!?" Naruto exclaimed

Kakashi nodded. "There is always danger in the Chuunin Exams, but with Konoha hosting it, I believed it was minimal. After surviving Nami, the Chuunin Exams should have been easy. No one could have foreseen Orochimaru's interference or that Suna would send their jinchuuriki."

Ranma scowled in response. "One more question. Why did you never correct the holes in Naruto's skills that were put there by traitorous Academy instructors?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I tried, but he mostly ignored my advice."

"What!?" Ranma and Naruto exclaimed.

"I kept showing him the right way to do things, but he never copied it," Kakashi said.

 _Looking through your memories,_ Naruto's dad said, _I can see that he did show you the correct stances and motions. It was just a little too subtle for you at the time, Naruto._

"Argh!" Ranma exclaimed, glaring at them both. "I don't know which of you is the bigger idiot! You for not realizing what your sensei was doing or you for realizing that you needed to spell things out for her!"

Naruto leaped on her sisters back wrapped her in a tight hug. "Ah, Neechan. Think of how much fun you would have missed out on if you hadn't had to teach me taijutsu?"

"It may have saved you getting your insane teammate's fist through your ribcage," Ranma grumbled.

Kakashi wrapped an arm around the two near twins and another around Sakura. "Now that we've had our little heart-to-heart. How about we go do a rousing mission?"

All three genin groaned in response.


End file.
